Go and Play With the Rats, Dear
by SJRivera
Summary: It's summer vacation, and Coraline's best 'trolls' have just gone back to Michigan. However, The empty flat on the other side of the door has finally been sold. The new inhabitants have kids. And the Beldam is hungry.
1. Prologue

**Short Prologue is Short**

The figure felt blindly around the ground for the case she kept buttons in. She selected two that felt about the same size and spent around an hour and a half trying to thread a needle. _Curse that dreadful girl!_ She thought to herself as she held the button to her face, sewing it on with the needle. Her vision slowly returned as she added the other button. She sneered, looking down at the stump that had once been her hand and sighed, setting about to make a new one.

The beldam flexed her new fingers, thinking to herself as she got out the supplies. A new one. She had to start from scratch.

The buttons were the finishing touches. She ginned in spite of everything.

She was hungry again.


	2. Chapter 1: Neighbors?

Neighbors

The car ride to Oregon was one of the dullest things Alex had ever experienced. Yes. That's right. Even more so than that stupid wedding last month.

"Mom?" Alex asked. "What's this place we're going to be living in again?"

Emily Robinson looked at Alex through the rearview mirror. "Sweetie, we've been through this. It's called The Pink Palace. You and your brother will be going to school in Ashland this fall. And don't worry. Miss Lovat said that there's a girl living there around your age called, uh... Caroline, I think."

"That sounds exciting."

"Al, lose the sarcasm," Michael, Alex's brother, said from the front seat. Alex sighed and stared out of the window and into the pouring rain.

Coraline sighed as she sat on the steps to her house. That had been a fun two weeks. Her friends had come to visit as they'd promised, but now the rest of summer vacation was just empty months. She sighed again as she lamented the fact that Wybie had gotten the flu. Stupid rain.

She shifted her head to her other hand and stared into the rain. She wished she had something to do; after all, one could only count everything so many times. It wasn't as if a new window was going to just appear in the wall. Not in this world, anyway.

Coraline squinted into the rain, trying to make out an approaching shape in the grey landscape.

It was a car; a simple black Chevy, making its way toward the Pink Palace. A large moving van was about five hundred feet behind it. Coraline froze. There was only one empty flat in this building; the one that was on the other side of her sitting room. The Chevrolet parked in front of the house and a woman stepped out of the car, and what was presumably her son getting out of the passenger side. The woman surveyed the house, a grin on her face. She tapped the window of the back seat with her knuckles, and a reluctant-looking person got out of the car, skulking into the house via the door to the right of Coraline.

The blue-haired girl sat up straighter. This woman had kids.


	3. Chapter 2: Alex

**Whoof, I been gone too long. I apologize for this, I was temporarily dead. And longer chapters will come. I promise**

**Thank you**

**Disclaimers. I has them. Yay. **

**Here they are.**

**Wait for it….**

**Goat**

Coraline stood on the porch, watching the door that led to the recently empty flat. Cat was lounging on her shoulders, waiting for Coraline to feed him. The blue-haired girl ignored him, watching the door to the flat intently. Noting moved but an occasional twitch from the cat's tail for about an hour. Coraline's mother, Mel Jones, came out to give Coraline a snack-limeade and peanut butter crackers- and to stroke Cat before going back inside. It wasn't until the limeade and crackers were gone that the door opened and the younger child stepped out. They walked in the direction of the garden before the door opened again, their mother coming out and shouting, "Alex! Come here!"

Coraline sighed, slouching back onto her porch. She had planned on following the new neighbor, to see who they were. She leaned over the side of the porch, letting the rain get on her face. As she opened her eyes, she realized that the neighbor had ignored their mother, and was instead continuing their walk: going in the direction of the old well. Coraline blinked, standing again hopefully. She was halfway down the porch steps before her own mother shouted at her from inside. "Coraline!" The thirteen-year-old hesitated, watching her new neighbor as the woman called for them again. This time, Alex turned back to their house, entering it reluctantly. Coraline sighed, kicking off her swampers as she entered the house.

"Yeah, mom?" she asked, walking into the kitchen. Her mother was on the computer again, typing with an angry expression.

"'_Ma'am,' _Coraline."

"Yes,_ ma'am_?"

"I do believe I told you to clean your room today?"

"I cleaned it _yesterday_. Why again?"

"The neighbors moved in today," Mel said, glancing up at Coraline, her tone implying that her daughter should know this.

"Are they moving into my bedroom?" She asked. "No! Then _why_ in the name of—"

"Don't you use that tone with your mother. Go upstairs and clean. _Now."_

Coraline scowled and headed up to her room. She shouldn't have snapped, but she had wanted so badly to find out about her neighbors. She sighed, sinking onto her bed, and peeled off her socks, throwing them under her bed to join the rest of the mess.

Coraline pushed the window open slowly, looking out. It was still raining. She saw the neighbor kid again, heading through the garden, a camouflage hat pulled low over their head. Coraline glanced around the room before shoving the remains of her mess under her bed. Pulling on a pair of her less-worn rain boots-white with red dots-she slipped out the window and onto the roof, finding her footing on the slick surface. She teetered over to the fallen tree and climbed down before heading across the yard, following the neighbor.

The new kid meandered about aimlessly, heading past the old tennis court and towards where the well stood now. Coraline followed at a safe distance, not making her presence known until the neighbor kid nearly stepped on the well. "If you don't watch out, you'll fall in," Coraline said softly, causing the neighbor to turn around with a shriek.

Coraline blanched. The hair was cut short, and tucked under a camouflage hat, but it was dyed a bright, bubble-gum pink, and the face belonged to a…

The girl frowned at Coraline. "Don't sneak up on people."

**Cookies to those who spot a Harry Potter reference ;3**


End file.
